Metal: From niche music to mass phenomenon

Like all rock styles, metal has its roots in the blues. The hard rock bands of the 70s, including Led Zeppelin (photo), Deep Purple and Black Sabbath, can certainly be described as the pioneers of the genre. They all played driving drums, psychedelic guitar solos and riff-based songs.

Bands like Motörhead not only delivered hard rock, but also the right image. Long hair, leather clothes, tight jeans, studded bracelets and symbols such as iron crosses, spiked helmets and fantasy creatures found their way into the metal world. With the "new wave of British heavy metal" and its figurehead Iron Maiden (photo), metal moved from the underground into the stadiums.

Metalheads love family trees. When heavy metal got faster, it was called speed metal. Punk influences led to thrash (pictured above: Slayer singer Tom Araya). There is also death metal, black metal, power metal, Viking metal and many other genres and subgenres. Ten-minute songs? Overtone singing? Bagpipes? Just about everything is allowed in the metal world.

Metal first met pop in the 1980s. Bands like Mötley Crüe (photo) or Skid Row wore flashy spandex instead of jeans, jewelry to emphasize their well-defined muscles — and carefully styled their hair with lots of hairspray, which is why these bands were often labeled as "hair metal." Instead of the dark lyrics typical of metal, their songs were mostly about sex or partying.

Ignited churches and murders in the Norwegian black metal scene caused an international sensation in the 1990s. The entire metal scene, which combines completely different styles and attitudes, was repeatedly taken into custody due to these incidents. Until well into the 2000s, "concerned citizens" called for the ban of certain bands. In this image: black metal band Mayhem, in 2014.

Four of the most successful metal bands of the 80s met regularly in various combinations: Metallica (picture), Slayer, Anthrax and Megadeth played concerts and tours together every few years and filled stadiums with tens of thousands of fans. Metallica's "Black Album" from 1991 paved the genre's way into mainstream radio stations with its tender-hearted hit "Nothing Else Matters."

Almost 50 years after it developed, metal culture is well integrated into society. The metal greeting, the sign of the horns, is a hand gesture used by bank employees, elementary school teachers or senior citizens to say: "That rocks!" In some of its subgenres, however, metal still has the drive of its early years — as the subversive, dark heart of rock music.